The Heir of Night (51 page)

The wind rose again beyond the protective circle, screaming in toward the hilltop—and the demon screamed, too, a long, heart-chilling cry, and came riding in on the wind’s back. Kalan flinched, but the hounds did not hesitate. They surged forward, baying their own thirst for blood, destruction, and death—and the flame-filled blackness stopped, hovering just short of the shield’s rim. The hounds growled, a menacing rumble that shook the earth, and the Huntmaster strode forward, his cloak swirling at his heels. “Begone from this place, Night Mare!” His voice was strong and cold, and the crow raised its wings and cawed in fierce counterpoint from his shoulder. “This ground belongs to the Hunt of Mayanne. You cannot hunt here!”

There was no answer out of the darkness, but after a long, long moment the viridian eyes winked out, one after the other; the mass of black on black that surrounded them retreated slowly, then vanished. The hounds began to relax, sitting or lying along the shield perimeter, the soft pearl-light glowing around them. The Huntmaster stayed where he was, his head turned slightly as though listening to the wind, or for some other sound beneath its voice, before walking back to Kalan. “Whoever called it Night Mare,” he said grimly, leaning the hooded spear against the arch, “named it rightly.”

“What do you know of it?” Kalan asked. Even beyond the Gate of Dreams, the wind was cold, and he folded his arms against its chill.

The Huntmaster shrugged. “Other than that it hunts with the Darkswarm?” The black mask, if it could be said to have expression, appeared sardonic. “You could say that the Derai themselves brought the demon to Haarth, for your Alliance dragged the Swarm here with it, caught in the vortex of their great portal that tore apart the fabric of worlds.”

Kalan stared at him and the sardonic regard was replaced with a certain grim amusement. “Did you not know that,
boy? Ah well, it may be that some histories have too bitter a taste, even for the Derai. But the Night Mares are powerful predators, however they came here. Their powers are greatest by night, since they are almost blind in daylight—but do not be lulled by that. Their sense of smell is remarkably keen, sharp enough to hunt by scent alone. But night predator or not, I do not think the demon will dare this place again, not while the Hunt is here. My guess is that it will retreat and seek out allies, those who accompanied it across the Telimbras, and hope to pick up your trail again by day.” He shrugged. “And even in Jaransor, the Hunt cannot protect you in the daylight world.”

Kalan nodded, because he already knew that they could not stay here, that this respite was only for a night or until the snow stopped. He studied the hounds, watchful along the shield perimeter. “They seem different,” he said slowly. “Not so wild as when we first met.” He thought about what the Huntmaster had said, about this being the Hunt’s place. “You knew that’s how it would be. That’s why you allowed me to bring them here.”

The mask was unreadable. “Your need called us,” the Huntmaster said at last, “and we answered, for you bear the Token.”

Kalan was still not sure he understood the real reasons that the Huntmaster was helping him, but was grateful that help had come. He shivered and the black gauntlet clasped his shoulder. “You have overreached yourself, have you not?” the harsh voice said. “Well, it is never too soon to learn that psychic powers are no different from physical aptitudes. You may train and strengthen them, but you can exhaust them as well. So be wary, boy—Kalan—of your own limitations as well as the strength of your enemies.”

The crow cawed as Kalan nodded again. “Ay, he should indeed rest,” the Huntmaster said, as though answering someone that Kalan could neither see nor hear. He grasped the spear, turning back toward the snowy hillside. “You go, boy. Sleep. I will keep watch here.”

Kalan blinked, feeling the physical weight of his body drawing him back into the cellar, toward the warmth of the fire. The deeper layers of sleep pulled at him and he let himself follow, slipping beneath the tide. It was only at the last that he heard the harsh voice again, deep within his mind.

“It was well done, Token-bearer, building a shield that could hold the Hunt of Mayanne.”

31

H
ounds bayed in the deeps of Malian’s dream but another voice spoke through them, filled with both darkness and light:
“Chosen of Mhaelanar, Beloved of the Nine.”

“I am here,” said Malian. “Who calls?”

Only the night replied, the sigh of wind amongst the tors and the whisper of the falling snow, soft as death and as quiet. In the tunnel beneath the hilltop there was only darkness and the relentless, grinding voice of rocks within the earth. Anger turned in that voice, a slow, burning rage that echoed the belling fury of the hounds as they pursued a shade through shadows. Malian ran with them, keeping pace with their red-eyed flight, and the tunnel changed into the hallways of the New Keep. Everything she saw was at odd angles, as though she hung from ceilings or moved through walls, hating the light and thirsting after blood and death with a hunger that was not her own.

Retribution.
The word reverberated down halls and along corridors as the hounds bayed again, scenting destruction and ruin. A miasma of fear crept through the silent courts and Malian saw stewards and pages looking back over their shoulders, starting at shadows and fearful for their lives.
Revenge.

The hounds howled and raced through the shadows but their quarry eluded them, slipping away into darkness.
Blood.

Malian drifted, silent as a fallen leaf through the familiar halls, and saw the trail of the fallen: Two guards lay in a pool of their own blood in the Warrior’s court, and a third on a lonely stair down into the stable yard. A young priest sprawled, rigid in death, on the threshold of Mayanne’s Temple, and the expression on his face was dread.

All the dead, Malian realized, as she looked down from vaulted roof-trees and ghosted through arched doors, were those who had fought the siren worm. Images flicked across her mind in quick succession: rooms, people, voices speaking.

“Retribution and revenge,” said Sister Korriya, staring down at an ancient tome. “It will come for us all as it did for Torin and the guards. Even the wyr hounds cannot find it.” The faces that looked back at her were mute and frightened, all young: all those who had gone with the priestess to the Red and White Suite—all except for Torin, who was already dead.

The Earl of Night lifted a bleak, hard face in the Little Chamber and stared at Asantir with eyes like chipped stone. “Find me this demon and slay it! How many more must we lose?”

In another room, at a later hour, Asantir stared down at the play of black-and-white pieces on a chessboard. “Blood feud,” she said softly. She turned her head and looked long and hard at the war chest against one wall.
“Death my song, “
she murmured at last—and took down the two swords from their stand on top of the chest. Her mouth set in a grim line as she studied the patterns on the black scabbards, and then she thrust them both into the loops on her belt.

Night followed day, and the stars wheeled above the earth. In the Temple of Mhaelanar someone screamed in terror and despair. Voices shouted, feet ran, and a sinuous form slipped between darkness and shadow near the sanctuary where Korriya and Vern had taken refuge. The sacred
flame burned on the altar and cast the silhouette of a flat, narrow head onto the wall, reared above a robed body. The head and neck were armored with chitinous scales; the long, lidless eyes regarded the priests with contempt. “Blood demands blood,” it hissed. “Your puny defences will not save you, even here in the sanctuary of your great god. Where is your Defender now, servants of Mhaelanar?”

The sinuous body wove through air and shadow toward the trapped priests. Malian could see the wave edge of its power bearing down on the rim of Vern’s psychic shield. Sweat gleamed on the young priest’s forehead; beside him, Sister Korriya picked up the torch that held the sacred flame. The light illuminated her face, expressionless and austere as the mask of the god.

They are brave, thought Malian, filled with a remote regret, but they will never hold. Even the baying of the distant hounds fell into silence, waiting.

A dark figure stepped out of the shadows by the Temple door. “Will you dance with me, Worm?” the newcomer asked softly, and drew a long, curved sword from a black sheath. The blade snared all the light in the Temple into itself. “Darkness,” said Asantir, “draws darkness, after all.”

The worm, larger, swifter, and more powerful than the comrade it sought to avenge, hissed and looped back on itself, flowing across the darkened hall with frightening speed. Asantir and her sword slipped sideways into shadow again, away from that silent, deadly rush. The worm rippled, becoming one with the night—then the flat head burst through the fabric of air, its jaws wide, darting toward the black-clad figure that spun out of darkness, the curved blade slicing at the worm’s neck. The worm rolled away, its powerful tail sweeping around in a counterstrike, but the black figure somersaulted out of danger in a movement that was almost too quick to follow.

Sound spun across the blackness of Mhaelanar’s hall: a song of death and drought, of the first grass shriveling in a black frost, and topsoil blown away by incessant winds. The
tune swelled, singing of harvests rotting in the fields and loves gone to ruin, an eternal promise of darkness, desolation, and grief that numbed the heart and vanquished hope. So powerful and persuasive was that siren voice that even Malian, watching and listening unseen, struggled to find an answer to it. “Who can possibly withstand it?” she whispered, knowing that no one would hear her. “This worm is too powerful. They will all be lost!”

But it seemed as though someone did hear her, for another voice rose in answer to her despair. As cold as death and black as the void between the stars, it soared across the lightless hall. A thread of unease crept into the siren voice, and the gleam of a lidless eye, quickly hidden again, peered through the gloom.

Malian glimpsed movement in the darkness beneath the latticed gallery that circled the great nave of the Temple. The shape of warrior and sword slid out of the blackness between the pillars, and the worm’s head whipped toward it. This time, however, the worm checked, drawing back as it—like Malian—realized that Asantir’s sword was the origin of the countersong.

Black blade.
The name cut through the lightless air. When the worm eventually slithered forward it moved far more slowly, watchful, as the cold song pushed back against its own paean of doubt and despair.

Malian frowned, both fascinated and perplexed, for how
could
this sword be another black blade? It seemed impossible that there should be two such weapons in the Keep of Winds without anyone knowing. Could Asantir have lied, in the old High Hall, when she said that she had not known what the black spear was? Malian shivered, her doubt colder than any fear spell cast by the siren worm.

She remembered the Red and White Suite, and how the ichor from the first worm had corroded Asantir’s sword. One would want a blade one could rely on, the next time one went against such an enemy—and some defence against its sorceries as well, not just a strong sword arm. And she had
seen
Asantir study the swords on the war chest before lifting them down, had heard her quote Kalan’s saying about the black blades.

Malian shook her head as the combat became a deadly contest of strength and power. Warrior and worm flowed in and out of the darkness beneath the pillared gallery: the one luring and retreating, the other pursuing, seeking to bite or crush. Korriya and Vern watched from the sanctuary, making no move to intervene, and Malian saw what the worm did not—the silent figures creeping along the gallery and mustering outside the Temple doors. She noted the curve of bows through the balcony latticework and the shuttered glow of a firepot; she watched black-clad figures slide, quieter than a whisper, through the Temple doors and into the shadows along its walls.

Ah, thought Malian, understanding at last: Now the trap is sprung. Yet she was also aware of the vast width and length of the Temple nave, the sheer distance between the newcomers and the two combatants.

The sword’s song had continued to build, filling the lofty hall, and the voice of the siren worm began to falter. Perhaps it sensed the silent net closing around it, for it hissed suddenly and Malian felt the surge of its power, hunting its opponent out. Asantir spun out of the shadows, moving to attack again, and the worm’s sorcery retracted, forming a rampart around its body. Asantir circled left, keeping the sword between herself and the worm. The flat head swung, following her movement, and a jet of power hurtled toward the Honor Captain. Malian opened her mouth to scream—but Asantir extended the sword and the assault rolled away on either side of the black blade like a wave breaking, its energy dissipated.

This time, the worm did not stop but followed the wave of power forward. It was fully visible now, a sinuous coil of potency and strength, and Malian was astonished once again by the sheer speed of its attack. The figures by the door broke cover and raced forward; the archers in the gallery were bending
their bows, but the worm’s head was already stretched out, the jaws extended for the strike. Asantir came in from the left, cutting toward the worm’s throat. The move was fast, very fast, but the worm pulled away from the strike and whipped around to come in again—except that Asantir had turned the sword cut into a roll, intercepting the trajectory of the worm’s counterattack. By the time the beast turned she was already coming up, directly beneath its upreared head.